For a long time some of my best friends and I have been wanting to take a girls trip together. We’ve literally been talking about this for years–pretty much since we graduated from college. That’s not to say we haven’t seen each other since graduation (we have), but we haven’t been able to get together just the four of us for an extended period of time that wasn’t for someone’s wedding. So late last year we decided to take a girls trip together.
Planning a trip takes a lot of work in general, but planning a trip with four different schedules and four people in four different states and two time zones is even more work. To pull this off we started the planning so so so early. As I said, we started talking about this idea late last year and fully decided to go all in and make it happen in January. The hardest part was probably finding a weekend that actually worked with everyone’s schedules. We wanted to pick a weekend that wasn’t a holiday weekend to turn into a 3-4 day trip so that travel was slightly cheaper–which is how we ended up agreeing on this coming weekend. The first weekend in May.
We then picked a location. It might be counter-intuitive but we wanted to go to a city that none of us actually lived in. That way there wouldn’t be pressure on one person to host and we could all enjoy exploring a new city together! We chose New York City because most of us have been before but none of us have spent enough time there to feel like there’s nothing more to explore. Plus there’s a plethora of activities, amazing food, and it’s super easy to get to–even from the west coast. Picking a city with its own airport (and train station) is ideal so no one has to rent a car or take a super long cab ride.
Next we (when I say “we,” I really mean Amara) divided up the planning tasks so that everyone was responsible for a bit of the trip but no one got overwhelmed. The key here, I think, is to choose your most responsible, Type A friend to be in charge of the lodging. Obviously for us that means Amara found the Airbnb that we’ll be staying in and then really solidified this entire trip. She found a few options that looked good and sent links to the group chat (don’t pretend like you don’t also have one) and let us decide what looked the best and was the most budget-friendly.
When it came to planning activities the first thing we did was talk about a loose budget. We’re trying to make this trip as budget-friendly as possible since we’re all near the beginnings of our careers (and some of us are recently done with graduate school and student loans are no joke). Which is part of the reason why we’re doing some pre-planned activities like going to a Broadway show and visiting some museums that require tickets as well as some free, loosely-planned things, like walking the High Line and exploring neighborhoods.
One of the difficult things about visiting a city that’s such a destination is that literally everyone has recommendations and ideas about things that are must-see and must-do. So trying to find a balance here is definitely going to be difficult because there’s no way we have time to do everything on the giant lists all our friends, coworkers, and acquaintances have given us. In the end, I’m betting we’ll manage to find a balance between exploring and eating our way through NYC and just spending time together doing face masks and drinking champagne to celebrate new jobs, new degrees, new chapters, and just being together.
I’m beyond excited for this trip, but I must say I have to agree with Amara’s husband who said he was shocked that we managed to pull this off. Stay tuned for more updates as I pack and finally make it to this girls trip!
xoxo,
J
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